Pleasant Valley baseball team holds off Chico for first EAL win

CHICO — After two innings, few might have predicted that when Michael Sanderson's fastball jumped off Ryan Barnett's bat toward the center-field fence in the sixth inning, the game would come down to a well-positioned Pleasant Valley High center fielder who just did catch up with the deep, potentially game-tying drive.

Down six runs, Chico kept fighting. Up two runs, the Vikings found a way to hold on.

Ty Maria smacked a two-run homer and Greg Darms, Matt Henderson and Samson Abernathy each had three hits as the Vikings erupted for nine runs in the first two innings, then withstood a Panther charge late to salvage a game from the three-game series with a 9-7 win Friday afternoon at McDonald Field.

The Vikings (12-4, 1-2 Eastern Athletic League) led 9-3 after Maria's blast to left-center capped off a five-run second inning on the heels of a four-run first. But they'd do no more scoring after that, and a two-out walk by Sanderson brought Barnett to the plate with the tying run on first and two outs. The powerful Panther first baseman, who had driven in two with a double earlier, jumped on an inside fastball and hammered it toward the 390-foot marker in center, but Ryan Steindorf made a running catch to end the threat, and Sanderson retired the side in order in the seventh to save it.

"Right off the bat, I was really excited — but PV's a great team, a smart team, and they'll chart you and figure you out," Barnett said. "They were playing far back, no doubles, and it helped out, obviously. But anything can happen, so there was a lot of hope in that situation."

It didn't seem like Chico (9-7, 2-1) would have much after the Vikings batted around in the first inning, with run-scoring hits from Steindorf, Darms and Abernathy capitalizing on an outfield Panther error. Chico answered back with three runs, two on Barnett's double and another on Corey Henderson's RBI single, but that only seemed to fuel PV's offensive fire.

Sanderson drove home a run with an RBI before Darms' RBI double and another run-scoring hit from Abernathy made it 7-3; Maria then cleared the bases with a two-run shot.

"We just wanted to focus on hitting the middle of the ball hard," said Matt Henderson, who started both big rallies for PV. "It's a big boost for us, not just to beat Chico but to get that first league win."

It didn't come easily. While Justin Joslyn and Noah Collado provided 5 1/3 innings of relief for starter Matt Gomes, who absorbed eight runs (just four earned) of damage before PV chased him in the second, Darms, the Vikings' starter, couldn't keep the Panthers at bay from the mound. Victimized by a killer two-out error, Darms allowed a big blow in the fourth when Clayton Schuler worked his way out of an 0-2 count to see eight pitches before launching a three-run homer to left to cut it to 9-7.

"He got us back in the ballgame, is what he did," said Chico coach Chip Carton. "He's such a competitor, he was focused, knew what the situation was. He's just one of many young men on this team who don't give up. I'm impressed and proud of the kids for how they conducted themselves today."

Ben Elder got four outs in relief of Darms, yielding just a walk, to earn the win, and Sanderson got the save.

"It was a great game. I tip my hat to Chico High," Souza said. "There's no quit in that team — but it's the same with us."